TeachingNeil Armstrong Hall of Engineering at Purdue University.Armstrong on July 16, 1999 at the Kennedy Space Center.

Armstrong announced shortly after the Apollo 11 flight that he did not plan to fly in space again. He was appointed Deputy Associate Administrator for aeronautics for the Office of Advanced Research and Technology (DARPA). He served in this position for only 13 months, and resigned from it and NASA as a whole in August 1971. He accepted a teaching position in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati.

He decided on Cincinnati over other universities, including his alma mater, Purdue University, because it had a small Aerospace department – he hoped that the faculty members would not be annoyed that he came straight into a professorship without a doctorate. His highest qualification was a Master's in aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California.[55] He began the work while stationed at Edwards years before, and he finally completed it after Apollo 11 by presenting a report on various aspects of Apollo, instead of a thesis on simulation of hypersonic flight. The official job title he received at Cincinnati was University Professor of Aerospace Engineering. After teaching for eight years, he resigned in 1979 due to other commitments and changes in the university structure from independent municipal school to state-school.[56]

NASA accident investigations

Armstrong served on two spaceflight accident investigations. The first was in 1970, after Apollo 13. As part of Edgar Cortwright's panel, he produced a detailed chronology of the flight. Armstrong personally opposed the report's recommendation to completely redesign the service module's oxygen tanks, the source of the explosion.[57] In 1986 President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the Rogers Commission, which investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of that year. As vice-chairman, Armstrong was in charge of the operational side of the commission.[58]

Business activities

After Armstrong retired from NASA in 1971, he avoided offers from businesses to act as a spokesman. The first company to successfully approach him was Chrysler, for whom he appeared in advertising starting in January 1979. Armstrong thought they had a strong engineering division, plus they were in financial difficulty. He acted as a spokesman for other companies, including General Time Corporation and the Bankers Association of America. He only acts as a spokesman for United States businesses.[59]

Along with spokesman duties, he also served on the board of directors of several companies, including Marathon Oil, Learjet, Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company, Taft Broadcasting, United Airlines, Eaton Corporation, AIL Systems, and Thiokol. He joined Thiokol's board after he served on the Rogers Commission; Challenger was destroyed due to a problem with the Thiokol-manufactured Solid Rocket Boosters. He retired as chairman of the board of EDO Corporation in 2002.[60]"---------------------